Korean War: Pusan Perimeter

[waynebaumber]

Don't worry Vince, Daniel is probably just averaging my tantrums with your easy going and accommodating ways...

Are we talking about the same Vince Hughes

[Hugmenot]

In all my years of wargaming, I have seen only 3 players throw a real tantrum: 2 ASL players who did so on a fairly regular basis and one player who took a PanzerBlitz loss really badly.

I've played maybe 200 ASL scenarios up until I quit in '94 and thought there was a higher percentage of ASL tournament players who were a bit special when compared to other wargame tournaments. Nothing close to the weirdos I saw at chess table, nobody waking up during a game and peeing on the board for example - but there were more players on edge than any other wargames I played.

And yes, the chess incident did really happen and I am just glad it was not on my board.

[Matt W]

I have to admit that I have never seen anyone throw a real tantrum at the table. I had one opponent (playing the old AH Afrika Korps) lose because he "had never gotten that far before and did not know what to do", but he was laughing when he said it.

We did have one team game of War in the East where the German forces were badly managed and our Soviet hordes managed to break through during the first winter and surround Army Group North and that commander decided to quit (in reality "defect"). The whole play was an enjoyable romp for everyone and a learning experience for the commander of Army Group Center.

Finally in one game of Strategy I during college I paired up with another player who was the political leader of our country (it was a fictional scenario) while I ran the military side of things. After he had provoked four other countries into an alliance against us I deposed him (again laughingly) and we all agreed to beat up on another player, as is the way of those games....

[JayTownsend]

Korean War: Pusan Perimeter, scenario #2: General Attack

Ok started with scenario #2 for a number of reasons; it’s a large scenario, it’s the larger part of the day one invasion of South Korea with lots of NKPA armor but mostly it is the scenario that I was most worried about, balance wise as the NKPA (North Koreans) have a huge edge in unit numbers and strength over the ROK (South Koreans) in this scenario, so I was worried about it being a cake-walk for the NKPA.

Keep in mind however the NKPA have two victory conditions they must meet; exit 60 steps off the south edge of the map and eliminate 20 ROK steps, so they can’t just blow 60 steps of the south end of the map or they won’t have enough strength to eliminate 20 ROK steps. The NKPA basically have two armies entering the map, one on the very rough map #95 and the other on the more open map #92. If the ROK player is smart he will clog up map 95 with just enough units to delay Elements of the NKPA 4th Infantry Division and 107th Tank Regiment to keep them at bay for many turns, as terrain on map 95 is terrible and just a few enemy units can make a mess of things. On map 92 they shouldn’t try and defend the whole map as the NKPA will find many holes in the open terrain on this map to blow through and exit south, so setup one every good defensive position and dug-in and use your terrain to your advantage and make the NKPA come to you. Unfortunately I did not adhere to this second part of the strategy but will in my next game as I spread-out my ROK units too much to support each other.

In my game the NKPA on map #95 were bottlenecked in the rough terrain most of the game but the NKPA armies entering map #92 found open terrain and attacked the spread out ROK units on this map with some difficult but once they were free, they helped their sister armies breakout as well for a NKPA victory!

I would say after playing this scenario that it will favor the NKPA 70% to ROK 30% unless you use my suggested strategy above. There are two fixes to make this a closer balanced scenario; one give the inexperienced player the NKPA side on this one or two simply shorten the turns to 20 instead of 30 turns which will put a lot of pressure on the NKPA to eliminate 20 steps and exit 60 steps.

Either Way a fun scenario to play for my first Pusan Perimeter scenario on the finished version of the game and pushing all those invading T34/85s, SU-76s and BA-64s across the 4 maps with a horde of Infantry against an assorted ROK force was a blast, win or loss!

[JayTownsend]

Now to pick another scenario to play out of 48. Most likely I'll Play #16: Task Force Smith next, to get some American units in their first action!

[JayTownsend]

Korean War: Pusan Perimeter, scenario #16: Task Force Smith

I decided this would be my second scenario, one because it is probably the better known engagement, it gets American units involved for their first action and it’s just a cool scenario. On paper you think the Americans won’t standup very well but when you look at the interesting victory conditions you see there are a lot of choices to be made: points for eliminated steps, points for undemoralized American steps still on the map, points for NKPA tanks steps that exit the south edge of the map.

I setup the Americans dug-in in a blocking formation but mostly around or in the town hexes and the hill terrain covering the enemy’s approaches. The NKPA player has two groups of units that enter the map; the first group consists of all T34/85 tanks on turn one and the second mostly infantry both on foot and trucks or GAZ67 mounted and another half step of T34/85s but do not enter until turn 12. The Americans defend with a mixed bunch of Infantry and support weapons including a 105mm artillery unit, 75mm RR, 4.2-inch, and 2.36-inch Bazookas. All this in 18 turns!

I moved the 10 steps of NKPA steps on to the map but decided they would be better to just get exit points but did engage some forward element American Infantry disrupting one unit before find a gap in the American lines and heading south, losing one step to the American 75mm RR gun which rolled high on the dice. This took about eight turns, now I still had 4 turns to kill before the next group of NKPA entered the map, as I chose to exit my NKPA tanks early. This gave me the chance to reorganize my American lines and recover my disrupted Infantry unit which took all four turns by the way, as the American morale is only 7/5.

The next much larger group of NKPA Infantry entered the map on turn 12 and has only 7 turns left to do as much damage a possible the American lines. They moved in as close as they could but took heavy casualties before they got close enough to use their direct fire or assault. The NPKA also has off-board artillery support but they rolled terrible with their dice except one or two times. The Half step of T34/85 tanks from the second group also managed to exit south taking the same path as the tank before it, even with a Bazooka team chasing it.

In the end, much to my surprise, as I wasn’t keeping track of the points, I added them up: The Americans lost 6 steps, the NKPA lost 9 steps, the NKPA exited 10 steps and the Americans had 16 undemoralized steps still on the map. The totals were 16 points for the NKPA and 25 points for the Americans, a Major American Victory!

This scenario rocks, as there are many different strategies and setups to make it interesting, which in turn mean many different outcomes. In hindsight I should not have exited all my T34/85s from the map so early, yes they are easy points you don’t want to lose in combat but they should have stuck around and softened up the American positions a bit, so when their Infantry arrived they would not have been met with a hail of bullets. Maybe I freaked out when a 2.36 Bazooka Team assaulted a passing T34/85 but I shouldn’t have as the bazooka team was destroyed. But this goes to show you, these scenarios can have a different outcome then historically and a player can do worst or better than the Generals of the past. This scenario I feel will have a lot of replay value and may even become a PG classic but only time will tell.

[thomaso827]

Does Pusan Perimeter use the regular 4th Edition rules or the Modern rules? Outside of the bazooka teams, I'd think era wise it could use the same rules as a WW2 game.

Tom Oxley

[JayTownsend]

4Th edition rules are used and special rules in Pusan.

[JayTownsend]

Errata: Pusan Perimeter

Scenario #32, All so New:
The maps need to be rotated right 90 degrees to right to make the scenario work for setup and victory conditions.

Scenario #22, The Perfect Assault:
The NKPA setup should read: Enter any map edge on Board 92 and/or 95 on Turn One or later, but at least 10 units must enter on each map. (Not each edge, as there are not enough units for that)!

Counters:

ROK AT Team counter has only a front side with a 0-0/3-0 value. The print on the back of the counter is a mistake and should be blank.

[thomaso827]

I started reading The Darkest Summer: Pusan Perimeter and Inchon 1950 from Bill Sloan. Good reading as we prepare to start these battles an the table top.

Tom Oxley